


Scent

by Tohko Kizami (Juniper_Woods)



Category: Corpse Party (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3666921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juniper_Woods/pseuds/Tohko%20Kizami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Before Heavenly Host.  Bonding.  </p>
<p>Summary: Yoshiki walks Ayumi home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scent

Alone in their mostly cleaned classroom, two students busy themselves with fixing up their homeroom in a silence that only one of them is grateful for. The class rep organizes the teacher’s desk, going through drawers to make sure everything is still in place for tomorrow before moving her attention to the stack of papers before her. Behind her, a young male works quietly. The silence, albeit pleasant, is so unlike him, that occasionally the class rep finds herself wondering if he’s plotting something.

He had been the only one of their friends not previously engaged when she’d asked for help in cleaning up, which, while disappointing, was better than going it alone. When they had started working, there had been some small conversation, but after half an hour they both became lost in their thoughts. Determined to get as much work done as quickly as possible, Ayumi forces herself to ignore the odd silence until  _finally_ , her companion has something to say.

“ _I never got to thank you for what you did.”_  His voice is low, but she hears him clearly. Ayumi looks up from the files she is straightening out to send Yoshiki a questioning look when he breaks their silence and speaks. He isn’t looking at her, focusing instead on erasing the blackboard like she had asked, so she is going to have to verbally acknowledge him if she wants clarification. She takes a moment to think back, attempting to remember what it is he is referring to without having to actually talk about it. Failing this, she mentally sighs. Darn curiosity.

“ _What do you mean?”_  She finally asks, sorting the files by class order in order to not look too interested. She fails to notice Yoshiki glancing over his shoulder at her for a moment before going back to work. She has no idea that he’s a bit heartbroken that she’s forgotten.

“ _Back then.”_  He mutters. She can barely hear the rest of his answer and it irritates her. Back then? Which back then? For a moment, she considers having him speak up. But then again…

Does it really matter? They have work to do and chatting is just going to distract a slacker like Yoshiki. So instead of easing both of their minds she drops it, and with a frown so does he. Neither makes an effort to bring it back up and soon enough Ayumi forgets that he’d even said it to begin with.

—-

Later that night, when the classroom is tidied up and the homework packets for the next day are stapled and put away, Ayumi closes and locks the door behind them as they leave. Yoshiki, who has been so very quiet today, offers to walk her home. She opens her mouth to refuse, but a quick glance out a hall window sends shivers down her spine. It’s pitch black outside. They must have been in the classroom longer than she’d thought. She begrudgingly agrees to the offer, missing the way Yoshiki’s eyebrows raise when she does so.

As they walk, Ayumi silently relents the fact that it is not Satoshi walking her home. She imagines him there beside her; though afraid of the dark like she, he would put on a brave face and protect her if danger did arise. So lost in her happy thoughts is Ayumi, that she nearly misses it when Yoshiki says something to her.

“ _-vering.”_

“ _Huh?”_  She says, snapping out of it. Yoshiki looks unamused, but repeats himself.

“ _I said you’re shivering.”_  Now that Ayumi is fully aware of her surroundings, she finally notices just how cold the night air is. Oh wow, she  _is_  shivering. She wraps her arms around herself and frowns. Tch. Why did he have to go and point it out? He’d snapped her out of a pleasant daydream to make her cold and now Ayumi can’t help but walk a little faster and grumble bitterly. Yoshiki has no issue keeping up with the increased pace, and it is with an embarrassed scratch of his head that she doesn’t catch, that he offers to let her use his jacket.

“ _Absolutely not.”_  She refuses him quickly. That sort of thing is borderline intimate, a thing she and Yoshiki most certainly are not. With a determined grit of her teeth in order to stop them from chattering, they continue to walk. Yoshiki watches her carefully. He notices how much she shivers and shudders, sees her vain attempts to tuck her hands under her arms for warmth and really is this the time for thinking it over? He repeats his offer, only to be met with another refusal. This one is forced through  **very**  audible teeth chattering and this time Yoshiki rolls his eyes before shrugging out of his jacket and plopping it onto her shoulders.

“ _Ho-”_ The look on her face is hilarious, if only because Ayumi is clearly caught between being outraged and being instantly grateful as the warmth of the jacket quickly quells her shivering. She has a moment of intense mental deliberation, trying to decide if her pride is worth the cold. It is when Yoshiki notices her about to remove it from her shoulders that he scowls and takes a hold of the collar.

“ _We can’t be too far from your house. Just wear the damn thing.”_  Naturally, this sparks an argument. They bicker loudly for a few moments until someone shouts at them from an open window. They bicker in hushed, slightly embarrassed voices after that until somehow, and he isn’t sure how he does this, Yoshiki manages to get Ayumi to keep the jacket on. Grumbling, she slips her arms through the sleeves and does up a few buttons. Her body instantly approves, and the feeling quickly returns to her skin. They continue their walk, all the while the taller of the two finds himself in awe.

Yoshiki can’t help but be a bit giddy despite the cold. If Ayumi was to look at him he would need to quickly turn away before she saw the dumb smile on his face and became angry. She looks… _Really_  good in his jacket. It’s too big, which makes the whole image just really cute because she looks smaller by comparison and ah just wow. Every now and again the wind picks up and she wriggles her nose in displeasure before attempting to wrap herself further in the jacket. The cold makes her cheeks and the tip of her nose red, something she’ll probably complain about when she sees herself in the mirror but it just makes the smile on Yoshiki’s face even bigger and dumber.

At one point, Ayumi does look at him, but to his eternal surprise and delight she asks him if he’s ok without his jacket.

“ _Yeah I’m alright.”_  He says with a shrug. His hands are warm enough in his pockets, and until just then he’d been happily distracted. There’s a brief moment where she studies him like he had her, checking to see if he’s lying. When she’s satisfied with her search she nods silently and looks forward again.

Only a few blocks left.

—-

“ _We have a test tomorrow.”_  She says suddenly, snapping Yoshiki out of his thoughts. “ _In history.”_  She clarifies, turning to him expectantly. Having been caught off guard, Yoshiki can only nod dumbly while he waits for his brain to figure out what she wants him to say. “ _Did you study?”_

Oh.

He takes a moment to think his answer over. The truth is, he has. Not all of the material, granted, but it’s more than he’d ever studied last year that’s for sure. If he tells he he hasn’t, she’ll get mad, but he might be able to play it off as something he might need a tutor in, and ya know, maybe she could help him out..? Knowing Ayumi however, she was pretty likely to just snap at him and march away before anything clever could be attempted.

In the end, he decides to see where telling the truth might land him.

“ _Yeah. Got a few chapters left. But I did.”_  Ayumi looks surprised. She actually stops walking and takes a moment to figure out if he’s lying or not. Yoshiki can’t decide whether or not to be insulted as she narrows her eyes at him. After a full minute, she finally speaks. In an attempt to catch him in a lie, she asks him a random question related to the study material.

Luckily enough, this question happens to be in one of the chapters Yoshiki  _had_  read, so after a bit of brain wracking he answers correctly. For the first time since they’d met, Ayumi looks just the  _teensiest_  bit impressed, and Yoshiki feels his heart skip a beat when she smiles.

“ _Good.”_  She says. She might have killed him if he hadn’t said ‘yes’. She would have wasted a particularly impassioned speech on him back then, and that would have irked her for the rest of her days. She adds nothing more to her ‘good’ as she starts to walk again. Yoshiki follows after her, her soft smile repeating in his mind over and over.

—-

For reasons she can not possibly fathom, in the final stretch of their walk, Ayumi’s thoughts continue to drift to the boy beside her. They range from heavy criticisms to quiet compliments that crop up in the farthest corners of her mind where she’ll never have to acknowledge them to herself. More than once the thoughts will remind her of something, and more often than she would like they prompt her to start up a new conversation.

She tells him to finish reading the chapters. He nods.

She asks him if he’s finished his essay. He’s been busy he says. But he’ll have the thing done on time.

She asks him if he still smokes. He says no. Hell no. Does she even smell any smoke in that jacket? He asks. She says no. No she doesn’t. And somewhere deep, deeep in her mind she is pleased to know that her words might be having some effect after all. He must have had this jacket for a while, she muses. It’s a bit worn in places with some stitches here and there and it actually smells pretty good. It’s an oddly familiar scent that she can’t place, some mix of what she thinks might be cologne and something else. She doesn’t mind it. It adds to the overall warmth of the material and that’s just fine with her.

What Ayumi doesn’t, and will never know, is that the scent is distinctly that of the male beside her, that it’s somehow managed to lodge itself into her subconscious and that wearing an article of clothing that spends most of it’s time wrapped around the boy in question is leading her thoughts towards him.

She doesn’t notice. He doesn’t care either way. This is the most attention he’s gotten from her in a while and it’s great.

—-

As they round the corner of her street, they find themselves talking about Ayumi’s candles, and the girl in question starts to ramble on about her favorite subject. She starts to tell him about her sister, but is suddenly cut off when her foot catches on the edge of the un-level sidewalk and she trips. She shrieks in surprise as she starts to fall, and then stares dumbly at Yoshiki for a moment when he manages to catch her in time.

“ _Shit you ok? Watch where yer walkin next time.”_  He’s got an arm around her waist and one on her shoulder and wow this is way too much personal space invasion for Ayumi at once and Yoshiki’s face is too damn close to hers so she suddenly shrieks again and pushes him away from her. He backs up a few paces, and she glares at him.

“ _Don’t touch me so freely!”_  She snaps. He scowls.

“ _Would you have preferred it if I let you hit the fucking pavement?!”_  Another argument starts, this time with no neighbors to tell them to quiet down so it goes on until Ayumi gets sick of talking to him for the day and marches the last few yards to her house by herself. With an annoyed groan, Yoshiki makes his way towards his own place, the unfortunate end to a pleasant walk home playing over in his mind.

It isn’t until Ayumi has gotten settled in her room and Yoshiki is about three blocks away that either of them realize that she still has his jacket.

Feeling a bit foolish, Ayumi pulls her phone out of her bag and texts him to come back. While she waits for a reply she drapes the jacket over her desk chair and walks over to her window to see if she can catch sight of him. The phone begins to vibrate in her hand. He says he’s on his way and sure enough she sees him crossing the street a few minutes later. She calls his name from her window and waves him over.

“ _Can you catch it from here if I drop it down?”_

“ _Yeah.”_ He says, and she moves away from the window to go get it. When she returns to the sill, she finds that the wind has picked up. Yoshiki finally looks as if the cold is starting to get to him, and Ayumi’s subconscious notes that she should probably thank him for letting her use his jacket. She drops the clothing down to him and he puts it back on quickly. She hears him utter a “ _thanks”_  before wishing her a good night and turning to leave. Ayumi opens her mouth and, torn between still being angry at him and wanting to be civil towards her difficult friend, only manages to mumble a faint  _'thank you'_  in return. He must have heard something, however , since he turns to look at her again. “ _You say something?”_  He asks. Unwilling to repeat herself she shakes her head.

“ _I didn’t. Goodnight, Kishinuma-kun.”_

“ _Alright. Night, Shinozaki.”_  This time when he turns to leave there is nothing to stop him. Ayumi finds herself puzzled as she watches him leave; the lingering scent of that boy still stirring up thoughts in her mind. Confused, and irritated with said confusion, Ayumi slides her window shut with a bit more force than necessary before moving away from it to find her sister.


End file.
